ABTTF: “U.S. Human Rights Report on Greece overlooks violations against the Turkish Minority”

The Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) has submitted a parallel report to U.S. authorities in response to the U.S. State Department’s 2024 Greece Human Rights Report.

ABTTF criticized the official report as “biased, government-oriented, and lacking objectivity,” expressing disappointment that the issues and human rights violations faced by the Turkish minority in Western Thrace were entirely ignored.

Education Autonomy Issue
The ABTTF report highlighted that the educational autonomy of the Turkish minority, guaranteed under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, has been effectively dismantled through complex laws and practices. Despite compulsory preschool education, not a single Turkish kindergarten exists in the region. Moreover, Turkish primary schools are being shut down on the grounds of low enrollment.

The number of Turkish primary schools has fallen from 194 in 2008 to just 83 in the 2025–2026 academic year. The ABTTF drew attention to the case of the Turkish primary school in Mizanlı village, İskeçe, which was not reopened in 2025–2026 despite having sufficient student numbers, stressing that Greece aims to eliminate educational autonomy altogether.

Identity and Freedom of Association
The report also pointed to Greece’s denial of the Turkish community’s ethnic identity, noting that associations with the word “Turkish” in their names have been shut down or refused registration. It recalled that European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rulings in favor of the İskeçe Turkish Union, the Rhodope Turkish Women’s Cultural Association, and the Evros Minority Youth Association from 2007–2008 have remained unimplemented for more than 17 years.

Additionally, the Rhodope Turkish Women’s Cultural Association’s application in 2010 was rejected due to the word “Turkish,” leading the association to appeal to the ECHR. On June 24, 2025, the Court ruled in Sağır and Others v. Greece that Greece had violated Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

ABTTF’s Call
The federation called on Greece to restore the educational autonomy of the Western Thrace Turkish community as guaranteed by the Lausanne Treaty and to ratify both the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.